Off Course (15 page)

“You’re probably right,” said Nic. “I’ve forwarded on the last known coordinates to our contact in the Colombian Navy. He says they’ll begin their search at first light, after the storm has passed.”

“I guess that’s the best we can do at this point. I just hate being blind. Wish we had another way to track him.”

“If it’s of any interest to you,” added Nic, “my contacts in Grand Cayman have been monitoring the radio transmissions for me. They haven’t heard a word from the boat since they shoved off. Quite strange, he says, to have total radio silence like that.”

“That makes sense. I’m sure it’s a forced silence,” Crabtree said, almost to himself. “Let’s hope the Colombians help us out. That’s all we’ve got going for us.”

“Our contacts there are very high up and they have assured my section chief that they will do everything in their power to rescue these guys and keep them until our forces arrive to take custody,” Nic said with confidence instilled in him by Alastair and his story.

“I just hope it’s not too late. They are sailing into some hazardous waters at the height of this storm. Nothing can be guaranteed at this point,” Crabtree said with a hint of exasperation.

Western Caribbean Sea, 7 Miles north-northwest of Providencia Island

June 15, 7:12 p.m. Caribbean Time

Collin’s head felt like it was stuffed with dry straw―and it was smoldering. He couldn’t think about anything but the intense thirst. Every fiber groaned, in need of something to drink. Stinky refused his repeated requests for water, telling him he didn’t need it.
So
, he thought,
this is how it’s going to end
.
A slow, torturous death by dehydration. Beats death by fire, maybe. And falling. A bullet to the head right now would certainly be better than this
.

Collin just glared at Stinky, unwilling to speak even if he could think straight. He was dying. He could feel his core temperature was rising. The beginning stages of heat exhaustion, beyond dehydration, were kicking in, but relief was not forthcoming. The only thing saving him was the cooler temperatures brought on by the storm and the obscured and sinking sun. Temperatures in the cabin still hung in the upper eighties Fahrenheit. Without water, Collin knew his time was short. It was surprising to still be breathing.

As his overheated mind spun in circles, he began to realize that he was not dead because Penh must still need him for something. That got him thinking about his mom and Emily, wondering whether Penh had kept his promise to leave them alone. Thinking of them being left alone in that abandoned warehouse brought little comfort, but them being alone was still far better than having that mongrel touching them. Collin closed his eyes and prayed for them harder than he had prayed for anything in recent memory. That prayer brought hope.

With his eyes closed, Collin felt the waves crashing against the boat and listened to the rain beating on the deck and the winds shrieking all around them. What he wouldn’t give to have that rain landing on his face and in his mouth. The sound of water he couldn’t touch, couldn’t gulp, drove him crazy. It was so close, yet so far beyond his reach. Every thought led back to his dire need for water.

Just above the din, he could hear the Captain and crew shouting out instructions and responses. The pitch of their voices attested to the peril they all faced. As his body rocked and bounced with the boat, he realized the storm might kill him before the thirst.

With his impeccable timing, Penh decided to call Stinky at that very moment. Stinky shouted into the phone and, as nearly as Collin could tell, asked Penh to repeat himself several times. Then, as the boat swayed and jostled, Stinky lunged across the space between them and onto the bed next to Collin. He quickly regained what balance he could, sitting next to Collin, bracing himself with his feet spread wide on the floor in front of him. He pointed the Uzi at Collin’s ribs with one hand and held the phone to his face with the other.

The unnervingly calm and precise voice of Pho Nam Penh blared at full volume with a tinny hollowness from the phone’s speaker. “Mr. Cook, it seems our business together is not finished. How cunning and deceitful you are. It looks like I shall have to order my men to return to the place where they left your mother and that lovely female friend of yours. I’m sure they will see it as a gift to continue where they left off. She is indeed a beautiful woman in her prime.”

Collin’s blood boiled anew with the thoughts of Penh’s goons harming Emily. He cursed himself for ever involving her.

“Mr. Cook? Can you hear me?”

A pause while Collin sucked in a breath and unlocked the pulsating muscles of his jaw. “I tried to tell you, but we got cut off because of the storm. Your man here tried three or four times to reconnect.” Collin hated pleading for mercy, but knew for his mother’s and Emily’s sakes, groveling was a must. “Listen, you’ve got to understand. I tried to tell you. You’ve got to call off your dogs.”

“It appears that a retinal scan is required to remove the money from your accounts. That is indeed a clever security measure, but I assure you, your beautiful friend and your ailing mother will pay the price for your trickery.”

“Go to hell.” Collin’s voice was weak and the ambient noise in the cabin was deafening. He hoped the rat on the other end heard him.

“You lied to me,” Penh bellowed. “And your ladies will suffer for it.”

“I told you, the line went dead. I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t get the chance to explain.” There was a crackling and popping over the line. No response from Penh. In desperation, he added, “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe. When we get to Panama, I’ll take the money out and give it to your men. That’s the deal. That’s the best I can do. There is no other way to do it. I tried to tell you that. Even with the codes, you’ll never get the money without me.” Collin was desperate. He knew it and he knew Penh knew it. A position he never wanted to be in with the likes of Pho Nam Penh.

“It’s not that easy, Mr. Cook. You have attempted to make a fool out of me. If I look a fool in front of my men, I lose all power. That is not an acceptable alternative. There will be a reckoning. There must be. It is the only way. Now, my men will have their way with your doctor friend. But don’t worry. They’ll record the whole thing so you can watch.”

“Don’t. Don’t hurt them. Hurt me. I’m the one who deserves it, not her and not my mother.” Collin had his brave voice on and it was genuine. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to defend the people he cared for. “If your men touch her―”

A wave pounded the side of the boat, sending Stinky and Collin hurling off the bed and crashing to the floor where they both rolled and skidded into the opposite wall. Stinky was able to catch his fall with his hands. Collin was not. He landed on his face and shoulder and rolled. The phone, too, went flying. It slid across the wooden floor, banged into the wall, and bounced down the step to the galley.

While the men above them yelled and scurried across the deck, Collin and Stinky struggled amid the continuing turbulence to gain traction and get into a ready position. Collin saw an opportunity to strike and went for it. He turned on to his back and kicked outward toward Stinky’s head, hoping to crush it into the wall. But Stinky was too quick. Collin’s foot slammed into the bulkhead instead, sending a shockwave jolting through his body.

Stinky reacted like a threatened animal. Any instructions from Penh blocked out while he focused on subduing his attacker.

With his hands tied behind his back and the plastic zip tie digging into his flesh, Collin was not able to maneuver his body into a defensive posture fast enough. Before he knew it, Stinky was on his hands and knees over Collin. He grabbed Collin’s shirt collar and twisted it tight, but the constant motion of the boat caused him to lose his balance and fall onto Collin. Collin, however, had no leverage as Stinky’s weight pressed down on his torso and legs. Another wave sent them both rolling again. As Collin struggled to sit up, he felt Stinky’s arm wrap around his neck and his body being dragged across the floor as he gasped for breath and tried to get his feet under him.

It was no use. Stinky had the advantage. Thanks to the abuse he had sustained, Collin lacked the strength he needed to overpower his foe.The storm did the rest, keeping him jostling and unable to regain control. The two men lay on the floor, rolling and sliding together in a heap, as the boat continued to pitch and sway. Collin fought to stay conscious by thrashing back and forth to loosen Stinky’s hold around his neck, hoping the next wave would enable him to work his way out of his enemy’s clutches.

*              *              *              *

Industrial Complex, 30 miles southeast of San Diego, California

June 15, 5:19 p.m. Pacific Time

Heat collected in the empty space. There was no movement of air, not even a hint. The arid desert summer penetrated the steel ceiling, the steel walls, the steel door, and pressed in from all sides against the two women bound to cushioned steel office chairs in the deserted warehouse. Stifling, dry air that hurt to inhale surrounded them and sucked the life force from their bodies. The silence that enshrouded them was almost as bad. With duct tape covering their mouths, it was futile to try to communicate. Making grunting noises only hastened the evaporation of their energy. So they sat in silence. Then the silence was broken by faint, distant noises. Sounds that were all too familiar to Emily. Squeaks, scurrying, and the pitter-patter of tiny feet scampering across bare concrete in search of something to eat, following smells that offered hope of a meal. Her stomach tightened and her pulse quickened at the thought of what was coming.

Emily tried to multi-task. Until the rats descended in droves, she had been trying to work one of her arms loose from the multiple layers of duct tape that bound both arms from the wrists to the elbows. It was impossible to reach with a fingernail, so she had attempted to pry it off by levering upward with her wrists and elbows as much as she could. It proved difficult and exhausting and not very rewarding. She had spent the hours since the two thugs left trying to free her arms. All that struggle had yielded only a few millimeters of play between the chair arm and the tape.

When the rats made their first timid arrival an hour before, she split her concentration between trying to scare them away and trying to get another millimeter of wiggle room. Now the rats were not so timid. They smelled something―her blood, her sweat, her fear, or the scent of the rats from the laboratory―she couldn’t be sure. With her shins strapped to the legs of the chair, she was unable to kick outward more than an inch or two. The only thing she found she could do was to make her chair hop by thrusting upward with all her might, using all her strength. The legs of the chair would come off the ground maybe a quarter of an inch and crash back down on the concrete floor, compelling the rodents to retreat. The first half dozen times she did it bought her several minutes each of relief with the rats scampering back into the shadows. After an hour of this effort, she was experiencing diminishing marginal returns on her energy expenditure. What sent them shrieking away in chaos the first few times, now hardly slowed their advance. Emily’s chair hopped. The rats waited, then advanced. She hopped again. They waited again; moved forward a few more inches. And so it went until the dirty varmints were nipping at Sarah’s feet.

And her energy was nearly gone.

In the pale, dust-filled shard of light that penetrated the dim, Emily hung her head and observed her own appearance as if doing so from outside her body. Her dress slacks were grimy and stained and damp from tears and sweat. Her silk blouse, ripped and torn and missing buttons almost down to her navel, clung to the perspiration on her skin except for where it had been pulled wide open by the man with the spikes. Blood and sweat had pooled in her bra, soaking it. The gashes on her cheek and chest had crusted over. The ones visible to her resembled the red lines on a map denoting a major highway.

It was no wonder the rats advanced toward them: blood. Both women had blood on them. Sarah’s dripped from the spot where her IV had been inserted into her vein. A thin trail of it leaked to the floor. The rats now favored the more docile and still Sarah, the vulnerable one. They congregated around the drips and scurried around her feet.

Emily summoned all of her strength to once again make her chair hop in Sarah’s direction. She found she had more strength than she expected and ended up hopping three times in a row, covering nearly a foot of ground and pivoting until she and Sarah were practically knee to knee. There was just enough slack in the tape on her legs to allow her to kick out an inch or two with each foot. She connected with the plump bodies of a few of them, but they continued to swarm, moving around to the back of Sarah’s legs, out of range of Emily’s feet.

Sarah was fading. Her eyes were hollow and her head slumped to the side. She could barely lift it to acknowledge Emily. This concerned Emily more than being swarmed by rats or being suffocated by heat. And there was nothing she could do to help. She wanted to scream, but chose not to waste the energy.

Industrial Complex, 30 miles southeast of San Diego, California

June 15, 5:31 p.m. Pacific Time

Emily’s flailing efforts to keep the rats off of Sarah were exhausting and minimally effective. Although she continued to kick at them, they climbed up the backs of Sarah’s legs and into her lap and across her torso to the bleeding arm. They climbed up her chest, across her shoulders, and into her hair. Sarah had gone catatonic. It appeared that she didn’t realize what was happening to her. But Emily was distressed enough for the two of them. She knew the diseases feral rats carried, unlike her pristine laboratory friends, who only carried the diseases she and her team injected into them.

Panic hit full steam when the first rat made the jump from Sarah’s lap to Emily’s. No amount of hopping or erratic movement with her limited range of motion could shake them off. She felt their claws digging through the thin, silky material of her dress slacks and scraping the skin on her legs. Then they were climbing up into her blouse, scratching as they clamored up to the gash the knife had made on her chest.

Horror set in and she began to shriek through the duct tape covering her mouth as she realized they were doing more than scratching with their claws. They were reopening her wounds with their teeth.

The terror was real. Emily was sure she and Sarah would be reduced to skeletons before anyone discovered them.

  *              *              *              *

So caught up in the terror of potentially being eaten by rats was she that Emily didn’t hear or notice anything else. Her shrieking filled her ears and covered all other sounds. She didn’t hear the engine as it approached the building or the crunching of the tires on the loose rocks strewn across the well-worn pavement outside as the van turned a wide arc into position and began to back toward the large bay with the locked roller door. She didn’t even hear the
thunk
of the sliding steel bolt. When the large metal door flew up and bright light poured in, her heart leapt with relief and joy. The sudden clatter made Emily jump, but the rats jumped higher. In an instant, dozens of the horrid creatures darted off to their secreted hovel, out of sight under the wall of an interior office behind them. Emily dropped her head and began to sob. Someone had somehow found her and Sarah and had come to rescue them from the terror of the filthy rodents. The relief was overwhelming, but short lived.

Straining to see her liberators through the brilliant light, her excitement brimmed until her eyes adjusted and she saw the white van backing into the warehouse. Then the door rolled down with a raucous clanging, blocking out the light from outside and snuffing the hopes within. Now her eyes were wide and her face pale with dread and a morbid, sickening brand of fright as she watched the two Asian captors unload a sturdy wooden table and a roll of carpet from the back of the van.

Emily’s heart grew heavy as she realized what was happening. The two men were rolling out the carpet, positioning the table, the lights, and the video camera as if they were arranging a movie set. The older one walked to the back of the van while the younger one adjusted the tripod that held the camera, craning it as high as it would go. The older one returned with two large cinder blocks, one in each hand. The younger one retrieved two more blocks from the back of the van while the older one brought a plywood plank that looked to be about four foot square. They worked together to set up a platform upon which they placed the tripod, with the camera aimed down at the top of the table.

When the older one returned with thick nylon rope, her heart began to race and fresh beads of perspiration trickled down her face. A cold wave of panic gripped her, cutting her breath into labored gasps, as she watched him cut the rope into lengths, tie them securely to each of the table’s thick legs, and drape the ends over the corners of the table. Emily began to realize what they had in mind and it filled her with loathsome disgust. Her insides tightened and twisted and she sensed that all the color had drained from her face.

Suddenly, she preferred the rats.

*              *              *              *

Western Caribbean Sea, 4 Miles North-northwest of Providencia Island

June 15, 7:40 p.m. Caribbean Time

Several minutes passed while the two men silently endured the jarring bumps and harrowing pitches. They were still intertwined. Stinky held Collin’s neck in the crux of his elbow and started once again to hiss and pontificate in a venomous stream of well-rehearsed lines. Collin guessed that they were practiced and memorized from a propaganda leaflet. His words were vicious, laced with hatred and vitriol against Western society and its excesses. He jabbed a finger into Collin as if he was the one responsible for all of the injustices perpetrated around the world in the name of capitalism. Stinky promised Collin would beg for mercy and cry like a baby as he beheld his loved ones’ suffering at the hands of Penh’s organization, a group of pure souls who had vowed to right the wrongs done by Americans for so many generations.

“When my boss commands, I will bring you a fitting death. Fitting for a thief. Fitting for a greedy cheater,” said Stinky.

“What makes you so sure any of that will happen?” Collin shouted above the storm. “You’ll die first if I have anything to do with it.”

“How can you say I will die first, Mr. Cook? You are in a position of extreme disadvantage. You are subject to the will of my boss. He has power over your fate, not you. He has designed it to be this way and so it is.”

“Go ahead and believe that if you want,” said Collin as he tried to wiggle free. “I don’t believe any of your nonsense. Someone else taught you those words and you spew them out as if they are absolute truths. But they’re not. They’re twisted to make you angry and to make you hate and you are too weak minded to know the difference between truth and the bald-faced lies that snake Penh wants you to believe. I have my own designs. Who says they won’t come to be?”

“Our cause is just; yours is not. We seek to pull down the greed and pride and arrogance of your country and bring prosperity to all the world, not just one rich country. You only seek to keep the money that you stole from us. We will prevail. You and the other American scum will not. You will all be brought down to the dust to beg for mercy. And we shall laugh.”

“How can you say your cause is just? All you want to do is harm and kill and steal, you lunatic animal.

As the waves smashed into the
Admiral
, the two men continued to tumble together in the cabin.

“You shall think differently when this is all over. When our plans are complete, you shall see our triumph,” Stinky said. “This will be after you watch your mother and whore girlfriend suffer in a most cruel fashion. First, my fellow team members will enjoy the companionship of your beautiful friend. They have been waiting to do so all day and have a special plan for her. When they are through, your mother will be sacrificed while your girlfriend watches. She will be as helpless as you. And you will have a perfect view. You will beg me to kill them first, and then you.”

“You’re deluded,” hissed Collin.

Stinky broke concentration during his speech. Collin felt the slack in his arms and took advantage during the next slide across the floor. He broke free and used his feet and legs to scrabble to the opposite side of the cabin.

Collin’s eyes were fixed on Stinky’s through the dim light spilling from a single, plastic-covered bulb mounted on the ceiling above the galley sink. The rage inside burned with a ferocity Collin had never in his life experienced. Stinky was inexplicably passive about his escape. An air of superiority enveloped his countenance. He was full of some sort of philosophical confidence, which perturbed Collin to no end.

Stinky fought for balance so he could regain higher ground. First, he crawled on hands and knees to the salon table. Then he scrambled to a sitting position on the bench and glowered downward at Collin who was leaning against the bulkhead near the steps to the hatch.

The ship was being tossed about in the roiling sea, making it difficult for Collin to keep his intensity as he struggled to maintain an upright position.

“I wish the boss would say it is time right now,” said Stinky. He raised his Uzi and pointed it toward Collin’s face. “I will enjoy seeing your face when they ravish your girlfriend.”

Another powerful wave propelled Stinky face first from his perch on the salon bench, knocking the gun out of his hands, and sending the two men careening toward the front of the boat across the wooden floor. They skidded in a jumble, aimed directly at the two steps leading down to the galley as the boat raced down the face of a towering wave. Stinky banged his shoulder against the wall before going head long down the steps. Collin managed to catch his balance just before plunging into the same low spot with Stinky by pressing his legs against the cabinet on one side and the wall on the other side of the steps to the galley and pushing his back into the floor.

Stinky scrambled to collect himself, but his weapon was behind Collin, and Collin blocked his path. The boat quickly changed angles as it climbed toward the crest of the next gigantic wave. Collin was now sliding backward toward the hatch and the steps leading up to the deck. The Uzi ricocheted off the wall and hit his bound hands as he slid toward the rear of the boat. With some effort, he was able to grasp it with his right hand by the stock. At that moment he sensed movement coming in his direction. It was Stinky making a last-ditch effort to seize the weapon. Collin hit the bottom step with the middle of his back and fought off the pain to stay in the moment. As Stinky left his feet, the step gave Collin just enough support so he could lift both legs in the air and kick out.

It wasn’t a solid hit, but it did the job. One foot connected with Stinky’s left arm, the other grazed his ribs on his right side. The impact, though not injurious, knocked Stinky’s trajectory toward the steps instead of directly at Collin. One knee just missed Collin’s left leg, but Stinky’s left shoulder barreled into Collin’s stomach, knocking out his breath.

The next moment, both bodies were slipping toward the kitchen and its precipitous step again. Collin struggled for air as he skated on his back. Stinky, dazed from the head-first collision with the steps, was tumbling on his side, shoulder over shoulder until he slammed against the base of the cabinet. Collin was heading toward the opening where the steps to the galley were located. This time, however, the boat pitched to the right. Collin’s left foot made contact with the cabinet and the inertia from the boat caused him to slip under the dining table to his right. Stinky followed, his head hitting Collin’s thigh as Collin’s shoulder crashed into the bulkhead below the dining room’s bench seat.

Collin still clutched the stock of the compact submachine gun.

As the boat began another steep ascent, the two men slipped along the floor as one tangled mess toward the rear of the boat again. Without hands, Collin’s ability to fight was severely impaired. Stinky thrashed his arms in an attempt to commandeer the gun.

“I warn you,” Collin growled into Stinky’s ear, “given the chance, I
will
kill you.”

“You won’t. You have no guts. You are no killer.”

“Believe that if you want,” Collin barked. “I’ll kill all of you if I have to.”

*              *              *              *

Industrial Complex, 30 miles southeast of San Diego, California

June 15, 5:41 p.m. Pacific Time

Emily had closed her eyes to summon her strength and hide her fear. When hands gripped each arm above the elbow, she flinched. One of the men cut her feet free, then each man held her down more tightly on each side while they cut away the duct tape from her arms. Together they yanked her out of the chair and dragged her toward the table. She wanted to kick, but she couldn’t move her legs. They had been bound in the sitting position for too long, too stiff to move.

The men lifted her onto the table and pressed her down on her back. The younger one climbed onto the table, straddling her with his knees and pinning her arms down over her head while the older man worked quickly to tie down her wrists first, then her ankles. She tried to resist, but her stiff muscles had very little strength or coordination.

The spiked eyebrow moved in close to her face, whispering something she couldn’t understand in her ear. A demonic grin spread across his face as he pressed himself against her. Emily again closed her eyes, trying to block out the looks from the man as he leered at her. Her attempts to wrestle free were vain. The man was thin, but muscular. Every struggle to break free caused him to apply more pressure and snigger more obscenely.

Emily felt a tug on her left ankle and realized the older man with the tattoos on his neck had finished tying her down. When he stood, he raised his voice and wrestled the younger one off Emily. She imagined him saying something like “Not yet, but you’ll have your chance later,” as the two men moved back toward the van.

Emily had never felt so vulnerable in her life. Tied to a table with her shirt ripped open, dried blood on her face and neck, and fresh blood mixed with rat urine dripping down her chest, she experienced a level of humiliation and degradation she had never imagined possible. Being at the mercy of these two miscreants conjured feelings of helplessness and hopelessness more overwhelming and dehumanizing than anything she had ever thought possible.